Eugenics

By: Mary Handy

What is Eugenics?

Use of Eugenics

Eugenics was the "science of improving the stock", or the belief and practice of improving the genetic quality of the human population. It was also a movement that was dedicated to trying to improve humanity by choosing certain people over others.

The picture above shows what eugenics is made of. It shows every idea eugenics uses and the importance of these ideas. Also, it shows how these idealologies all combine into different ideas and factors in eugenics. The picture compares eugenics to a tree because there are many sources that are being used to sustain it.

Nazi Germany used eugenics to try to change the physically and mentally handicapped. They tried to make the handicaps "normal." Eugenics was a science that tried to change the mentality of the patients. The mentally handicapped were seen as diseased human beings that either needed to be cured or gotten rid of entirely. The Nazis decided they would extinguish most of the mentally handicapped, but they would use the others in experiments to try to "cure" them.

The physically handicapped were also looked down on in Nazi Germany. They were treated like the mentally handicapped and were either extinguished or experimented on. The Nazis would also kill the children with these "diseases" because they wanted to make sure that the future generations would not be affected by it. The Nazis also used eugenics to justify the forced abortions for some pregnant women. If a woman is pregnant and she has had an ancestor that was mentally or physically handicapped, the Nazis would abort her child because they did not want to take a chance of it having those "diseases" as well.

The handicapped were not the only victims of eugenics. Southern Europeans, Jews, people of color, homosexuals, etc. were all victims to eugenics. Hitler and the Nazis deemed them unfit to live in society. They were all treated the same way and each group was forced into experiments based on their "problems."

This picture is a quote from a book about eugenics. This quote is saying that the mentally and physically handicapped should not be allowed to have children. Margaret Singer, the author, os saying that only the "normal" and "fit" adults should be able to have children. And that is the big goal of birth control.